For our Harvest Festival and Dancing we are celebrating the harvest season in the Monterey Bay, focusing on the fruits, vegetables, and cooking styles that have influenced this region for 500 years.   This menu honors the flavors and cooking styles of Italy, Spain, and Latin America as we like to do it here in the West.  After all, the Monterey region is cowfolk country as well as sardine factories.  (Menu is vegan unless noted.)

Appetizer

Just picked grapes – regional and Fairy-Tale Farm

Mystery Golden Delicious apples and Fresh walnuts - local harvest
Homemade compagnon bread – w/ Scarborough Fair herb butter or olive oil

Soup

Cioppino – hearty Italian stew with local harvest vegetables (please RSVP if you’d like with fish or without)
Homemade compagnon bread

Salad

Micro greens and heirloom lettuces – w/ heirloom tomatoes, flowers, and surprises, in a creamy basil vinaigrette
Multi-color potato salad – w/ fresh roasted peppers and Fairy-Tale Farm green bean pickles in an herb vinaigrette

Main

Molti Strati alla Griglia – Italian-style casserole w/ pan grilled eggplant, zucchini,  onions, and cheese in a mild tomato-chili sauce (vegetarian, vegan option: please specify when RSVP’ing)
Cowfolk Beans – sprouted pinto beans w/ mild Monterey chili spices (vegan)
Monterey Romance rice – light Spantalian heavily fused with the New World (vegan)

Dessert

Pie selection: apple pie, pear pie, Arana Gulch blackberry pie, rhubarb apple pie, the neighbor’s peaches pie, gluten-free pie (please request on RSVP)
Coffee
Tea

The food sourced for this menu is, as always, as local as we can make it.  We start in our own garden, then the gardens and farms of our friends, then we go to farmer’s markets, and the final ingredients at a local store, with a clear bias toward regionally sourced.

In particular, the food is supplied by our friends at City Blooms (micro greens), at least three other farms we’ll name at the dinner, Azalyne Skye Olson, Ellen Baker, and a few others we’ll discover this week.

Come dine with us and share in the Santa Cruz urban bounty!

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